Objective

Making high-quality facilities accessible

Making high-quality facilities accessible was one of the six objectives from the strategy period 2011-2014. These priorities were the key areas NWO focused on during this period, and to which programs and financing instruments were linked.

For the period 2015-2018, NWO has formulated a new strategy. In line with this new strategy, NWO will align its programs with the National Research Agenda. This agenda will announced at the end of 2015 announced. Until that time, the programs and funding instruments from the previous strategy period are maintained and still valid.

Some forms of research require a supercomputer, a particle accelerator, a unique telescope, or a vast database of research data. NWO offers scientists access to such high-quality facilities, which are usually too expensive for a single university.

NWO institutes act as a gateway

NWO's institutes facilitate research by colleagues in the Netherlands and other countries by making instruments and laboratories available to them. These might be observatories with unique telescopes, a laboratory for research at nanometre scale, a climate room for marine research or unique research material on criminality. The institutes play an important role as a gateway to international research facilities.

Facilities at specific locations

NWO makes it possible to conduct research at specific locations by, for example, paying the membership fee. Researchers can then reserve time on supercomputers to process large quantities of data, or acquire observation time on a telescope in Hawaii. They can take part in drilling expeditions to conduct research deep in the ocean floor, or do experiments at the Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble. All facilitate high-quality, competitive research.

Purchasing equipment

NWO also makes funds available for universities, knowledge institutions and libraries to purchase high-quality equipment and build, combine and enrich their data collections. By doing this, NWO reinforces the infrastructure of scientific institutions in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) funds top researchers, steers the course of Dutch science by means of research programmes and by managing the national knowledge infrastructure.